My Life in Food

Archive for the category “vegetarian”

I’m sitting here killing off the last of this delicious lasagna we made Sunday night.

YUM!

It was super easy and low-maitenance, and came out to about 440 calories per serving…and they were pretty big servings!

I used a square baking pan, no boil noodles, and jarred sauce! YEP. THAT EASY. Ok, ok, well I used a couple more things.

First, I chopped up half of an onion and 3 cloves of garlic and divided that in half between two pans. In one pan, I sautéed the onion, garlic, and about 1/4 tsp of red pepper flake and then added a jar of tomato basil marinara.

In another pan, I simply sautéed the onion and garlic, and then added that to a 15 oz carton of ricotta cheese and 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil.

Then, wilt a bag of spinach in the same pan used to sauté the onion, grab a bag of shredded mozzarella cheese and now you’re good to go.

Add some sauce to the bottom of the pan, layer some no-boil noodles, and then cover again with sauce.

Then add a layer of ricotta, and then the spinach. Add a couple tablespoons of the shredded mozzarella.

Continue to layer! I saved the spinach for the bottom and top layers and just did sauce and cheese in between.

To the top layer of noodles, add sauce, mozzarella, and if you dare, some grated parmesan!

Bake at 350 for 45 min to an hour, let sit a few minutes and enjoy!

SO FRICKIN GOOD and SO good for your soul! And yourself. This batch serves six, easily, and reheats nicely. So dig in.

If you were wondering if there would be a big emotional rambling at the end of this post…well, my friend, you have guessed correctly! Hooray! Ok, maybe not that big.

But before I get into all of that, let’s talk about all the food I made in the past few days. All of it. Because I made a lot. Ooof…side bar, I think I’m getting the flu. Arms hurt. So sleepy. Can’t…oh never mind.

FIRST. Let’s talk about the delightful little cheesecake bites I made in prep for Saturday’s wedding. Yep, more recipe testing. I modified this recipe, and made it more of a regular vanilla cheesecake (ok, ok…and lemon and ginger) instead of the pumpkin bacon cheesecake Giada would have me make. Of course, once the wedding is over, I will, in fact, be making them with pumpkin and bacon because I mean…COME ON! You just try to tell me they won’t be delicious.

Alrighty. Here goes:

First, make a cocktail out of apple cider, whiskey, bitters, and ice cubes.

Consume!

Make your graham cracker crust, and put about a teaspoon full into each mini-muffin liner. Press to flatten.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, let cool for 20, chill for 1 hr, and serve!

How did they turn out? Well, I’m pretty confident that had I not overcooked them by 10 minutes (D’OH!) they would have been perfection! The cake itself tasted pretty good, it just could have been a bit creamier. Actually, the biggest disappointment (and still, it’s a small disappointment with a super easy solution) was the crust. It was too chewy! Way too chewy! I think this was because a) the crust doesn’t bake before the cake batter goes in and b) not enough BUTTER! So when I make these little nom noms again (on THURSDAY) I’ll be sure to add more butter and just bake the crust for about 8 minutes or something. But this is what they look like all done:

So…a little bumpy and overcooked…but overall, pretty good.

For dinner that night, we had a super veggie-licious feast.

We shredded three zucchini’s into noodle shapes and we did the same with some onions.

We sauteed them with a sage butter!

We served them with roasted cauliflower and a salad, of course! Veggielicious!

And for dinner last night, I made my standby Beef and Butternut Squash Stew. Hoboy! This was super rich and super yummy! Hmmm….I thought I had already posted about that, but I guess not. Ugh. Too tired. It’s yummy: beef, onions, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, butternut squash, rosemary, sage, red wine, and chicken stock. And I threw in what was left of the cauliflower.

Yeah, that’s a piece of bread I rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with cheese! NOMNOMNOM

Aaaand that concludes the food portion of that post…and honestly, now that I’ve finished the food portion…I’m a little tired to go on. Obviously the solution is to use song lyrics:

“So if by the time the bar closes and you…” oh who cares. Someone bring me ginger ale. My stomach has been acting up all week. Welps.

Our garden is booming and so our need to use a lot of tomatoes and peppers is growing. We had about 13 gypsy and poblano peppers that needed immediate consumption, and I was trying to come up with a good way to make peppers be the main dish.

So I stuffed ’em, ya’ll.

I cooked up some quionoa with olive oil and garlic, added salt, pepper, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, and some lemon juice.

I cut the tops off of the peppers and scooped out their seeds and tossed them all with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then, using a teaspoon, I filled them all with the stuffing.

I popped them in the 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. Delicious!

I’m making this with bigger bell peppers next weekend, and will probably add chopped mushrooms and scallions to the mix.

For dinner last night, I also chopped up six or seven golden potatoes and tossed with chopped garlic, rosemary, lemon zest, olive oil, salt, and pepper and baked those for 45 minutes at 400 degrees.

A salad of arugula and garden fresh tomatoes was tossed with lemon juice and olive oil. Simple, rustic, and oh so good.

I’m starting to feel energized again. A lot happier than I was a few weeks ago, but I guess that’s the ebb and flow of life. I just have to keep breathing and anytime a boundary (no matter how small) is crossed, I just have to shake it off. And I’m getting much better at it.